The One Modular EV That Was Created By Fifty Companies

The StreetScooter is a $7000 EV with a 74 mph top speed and 80 mile  range. It relies on leased batteries and uses a heat pump for heating  and air conditioning, and shipping company DHL has already ordered 3,500  of them — but the most interesting thing about the vehicle is how it  came to be.

What began as a partnership of ten companies has grown to a  collaboration among more than 50 auto parts suppliers, tech companies  and software developers. Each one of them had a hand not only in  building the StreetScooter, but in creating it.

Traditionally, cars are built from a top-down approach. The original  equipment manufacturer (OEM) designs a vehicle and dictates design  requirements to suppliers. There’s back-and-forth, but it’s clear who is  in charge. Unfortunately, the process can overlook what efficiencies  supply chains offer.

“The problem with this approach is that there are huge additional  amounts of innovative ideas in the supply chain that could not be  followed given this type of OEM focused development,” said Prof. Achim  Kampker of Aachen University. He’s the managing director of the  StreetScooter project, which implemented a collaborative approach that  took into account the entire vehicle from design to disposal.

In business school jargon, that’s called product lifecycle  management, or PLM. Each of the collaborators on the project was  organized into a lead engineering group (LEG), made up of the foremost  experts in each of the vehicle’s components including the exterior,  powertrain and electronics.

“Everyone is on par with each other.  Everyone can bring in ideas to  radically try whatever makes sense. The subject matter expert comes to  the table and collaborates with the other LEGs,” said Kampker. “In case  of a conflict that cannot be resolved, the issue is sent to the team of  leaders in program management and it is resolved at that level.”

The  method that participants took to build the StreetScooter echoes the  car’s design. It’s a modular vehicle, with parts that can be added,  removed and reused depending on customer preference. Even the batteries  are leased separately so that fleets don’t have to deal with  maintenance. Kampker says that relying on the strengths of individual  manufacturers to create their own modules doesn’t just maximize  customizability, but also allows the StreetScooter to be built quickly  and inexpensively.

“Individual functions are each integrated in a module and offer the  possibility to adjust the vehicle to the individual needs of the buyer  before and after the sale,” Kampker said. “The ability to reuse the  components in the various models and in another vehicle also leads to  significant increase in production volumes at an early stage.”

Despite a team that was made up of members from different countries  who spoke different languages, despite each participating company having  its own interests at heart and despite a collaborative approach that  had never been tried before to build an EV, the StreetScooter was  developed in about a year.

It’ll be hitting the streets in Germany in  the spring of next year, and there are plans to bring it to the US later  on. Kampker thinks that was only possible thanks to the unique approach  that put all participants on par with each other.

Could a traditional approach have yielded the same results? “In  general yes, but rather than taking 12 months for the first physical  prototype to be delivered, it may have taken 12 years,” Kampker said.

SOURCE: Autopia